Volume 47 [2012–13]

Put ’em in the glass

Michael Redmond
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0
Put ’em in the glass

marke@sfbg.com

BEER + WINE You may be a growler geek, a craft connoisseur, an export expert, a noble hops know-it-all … but are you a real Beer Nerd? A new Trivial Pursuit-like game from local publishing powerhouse Chronicle Books (www.chroniclebooks.com) tests your brew knowledge — “brewledge”? — as you advance around a colorful board. But here’s the delicious twist: players can land on “blind taste test” squares and really show their hops IQ. It’s a drinking game where drinking can actually help you win. Truly, we live in an age of wonders.

 

BRING IT, MAKE IT, RIDE IT

Yes, yes, small-batch urban wineries are still all the rage, but how does one distinguish itself in the great grape landscape? Well, if you’re the folks behind Tank 18 (1345 Howard, SF. www.tank18.com), you make your own wine, yes, but you also open up your beautiful, rustic-modern space for big events and parties (including a cheeky, sexy one during Folsom Street Fair) with a full bar. You also hit a sweet green spot with a BYOB-like event every third Saturday called “Sustainable Bottling” — patrons bring in rinsed-out bottles of wine they’ve already enjoyed at home to exchange for discounted, full Tank 18 bottles. Starting at $7.99 per bottle, that’s an upcycle we’ll gladly uncork.

Then there’s the Dogpatch WineWorks (2455 Third St, SF. www.dogpatchwineworks.com), which opened last year in a huge 15,000-square-foot space, and follows in the footsteps of Potrero Hill fave Crushpad by inviting people to come make their own wine. Budding vintners get to choose their own vineyard and varietal adventure, and the Dogpatch experts guide everyone through the process in a casual environment. This is the kind of team-building corporate exercise we’d like to see replace trust falls and retreats.

Oh, and did you know that you can take a bike tour of SF’s urban wine scene and learn some of the awesome century-old history of local grape cultivation? Gears and Grapes (www.gearsandgrapes.com) offers a breezy $99 day-ride through the city’s hotspots, stopping for tastings along the way. “Over 100 wineries flourished in the places that new tech start-ups now thrive,” G&G informs us. Can we have those wineries back, please?

 

SPEAKEASY SMOKIN’

Speakeasy (1195 Evans, SF. www.goodbeer.com) just celebrated its sweet 16 with a huge block party in the Bayview outside its brewery. But if you missed it, never fear. You can visit Speakeasy’s lovely Tap Room (Tue-Thu, 3-8pm; Fri-Sat, 1-9pm; Sun, 1-6pm) for some primo tastes, possibly including some of the new brews debuted at the block party (Bourbon Barrel-Aged Scarface Imperial Stout, 2009 Old Godfather Barleywine). Here’s an extra tip — Sundays they invite some of the city’s yummiest BBQ in to soak up some of those suds. Upcoming Smokin’ Sundays feature Memphis Minnie’s on Oct. 13 and Baby Blues BBQ on Nov. 10.

 

OH YEAH, THAT THING

Just like the October appearance of seasonal craft beer favorites — Anchor Brewing’s deep, rich Big Leaf Maple, 21st Amendment’s nicely spiced Fireside Chat, and, on a broader scale, Shock Top’s Pumpkin Wheat — so we must tighten our lederhosen in preparation for Oktoberfest by the Bay (Sept. 20-22, Pier 48, SF. www.oktoberfestbythebay.com). In addition to the hordes of revelers, you can catch entertainment from the Chico Bavarian Band accompanied by traditional dancing from the Nature Friends Schuhplattler (despite the name, not a nude oompah-pah association, alas). Plus, of course, a million steins of Spaten bier. Expect an overload of dirndls. *

 

Frankenkeg

Michael Redmond
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0
Frankenkeg

emilysavage@sfbg.com

BEER + WINE It seemed to just appear one day, lurking around the corner of the kitchen entryway. It was huge, buzzing, rectangular, and nearly five feet tall. Its glossy belly gurgled with homemade California Common brown ale, a slightly off concoction, similar to a typical Anchor Steam beer, that nevertheless tasted quite fresh, and spewed forth from the newly attached tap.

And that’s when I learned to love the scrappy new project in my kitchen: the Frankenkeg. It’s a bulky, DIY kegerator pieced together by my husband, Marcus, over the past few months, after a homebrewing obsession that began a little over three years ago. And although it’s a work in progress, it’s a real beauty in the way you’ll always love the rescued dog you taught new tricks. Plus, with three taps, it churns out a pretty constant stream of the good stuff.

The whole homebrewing thing started off far more inauspiciously, after a few friends in the East Bay and Outer Richmond area began their own homebrew experiments.

“I just always thought it was too difficult, but once I saw [my friends] doing it, I was like, ‘okay, I can do this,'” says Marcus, a GIS specialist for an environmental nonprofit in the East Bay. “And you know, I always need a hobby, and this one involves making stuff. You get to make something and watch it grow.”

He began where many budding homebrewers in the Bay Area start: Brewcraft, a devoted homebrew shop in the Richmond district, led by brewmaster Gregory William Miller the Thirdstein, aka Griz. Griz, who also teaches free classes at the shop, was once quoted on KAWL as saying, “I learned how to brew out of the back of a Field and Stream magazine.” From my limited interactions with him at Brewcraft, it’s clear he knows a whole lot about the craft of beer.

Marcus learned through Griz’s store and also by going to San Francisco Homebrewers Guild events, like a recent one at Cervecería de Mateveza at 18th and Church, where the brewers crafted a Dulce de Leche imperial stout. The San Francisco Homebrewers Guild is a combination of two groups that merged in January 2013, in which there are 140 dues-paying members and nearly 500 in the Meetup group. The founder and president is Chris Cohen. Group VP Kevin Inglin says the experience level in the group is wide-ranging, “We have several brewers who have been at it for a decade or more and a large group of people new to the hobby.” Inglin, an Army officer who is working to open his own nano brewery with his wife in the city, started homebrewing in 1996 with an ingredient kit he bought from a display set up in the corner of a German bar, while living in the South. He’s since homebrewed in Tennessee, Alabama, Hawaii, Virginia, Texas, Germany, and California.

Marcus first picked up his kit from Brewcraft, which included a big glass fermenting jug. His initial recipes, cooked up on our stove in a huge boiling pot, were all from Griz. He’s since learned to switch up ingredients to form his own concoctions by listening to podcasts like The Jamil Show, and visiting websites including Home Brew Talk, the Homebrewers Association Forum, and the homebrewing subreddit.

And Marcus enters his beers onto online recipe toolkit, Brewtoad. The site helps keep a batch within the style and tells you how it will taste with all the ingredients because, “to me it’s a little bit abstract: you throw all this stuff in there; I know this thing will do that, but I don’t know how much of each. So it will tell you, if you add this much crystal 40 — a grain that adds color and sugars — this is what the final color will be, and if it’s within the style you’re trying to make.”

In the past few years, Marcus has made batches of Imperial stout, IPA, cider, black ale, and a hibiscus saison inspired by Pacific Brewing Laboratory, which we sipped at Outside Lands.

The kegerator idea came in when he realized he was spending entire evenings cleaning out old bottles, only to use the same bottles for the next batch of homebrews, usually enjoyed in our own apartment with friends, or at the park.

He started with the smallest piece of the equation, hence why I was so surprised by the final, monstrous outcome. At first, it was just the miniature gift box-sized temperature controller, which he got the idea for off a homebrew forum. The STC1000 is the part he got off Amazon.com, which is just the switch and the temperature probe. He attached that to a plastic project box, which he got at a hardware store.

Gathering up parts for the eventual kegerator, he found a deal online for four Cornelius (Corny) kegs on a homebrewing site. His kegs have the pinlock type of closure, and were originally used as syrup containers by the Coca-Cola company, likely at a fast food restaurant.

Next came the beast itself: the chest freezer, which would eventually hold the Corny kegs, a 20-pound CO2 tank, and that little temperature box attached to the outside, controlling the temp of the beer fermenting inside.

He picked up the chest freezer from another hobbyist on Craigslist, who lived in Oakley, near Antioch. The man raised pitbulls for show, had a garage full of fishing lures, and also raised pigeons — which explained why there was bird shit all over the chest freezer at first. It’s since been vigorously scrubbed down and lacquered with appliance paint then spray painted white.

On a sweltering weekend afternoon a few months back, our friends in Oakland helped us build a wood collar, which sits between the lid and the body of the chest freezer to give it extra height. It makes it roomier for the Corny Kegs and that oversized CO2 tank — which will likely fill around 20 to 30 kegs before it needs to be refilled. They also helped drill holes to attach the taps, because how else are we going to transform our apartment into a brewlab?

The beast was trucked to our third-story walkup and dragged into the kitchen with the help of those same friends. And now it sits, all seven cubic feet of it, chilling and cleansing two brand new batches of homebrew.

We cooked up both in the past week, one a pale ale and one an IPA. I used “we” liberally here, as I’m more of a sous chef, holding up pots and stirring when needed. The pale ale is a typical West Coast ale, in which we used Chinook bittering hops and cascade, and newer hop Amarillo, which “supposedly has a pineapple flavor.”

The IPA also includes a lot of Amarillo, along with simcoe for bittering, and citra at the end. The husband fears the IPA might be a bit too bitter for most palates, hence the more balanced pale ale, which will be ready to spill forth from the first tap come next month. The IPA might take slightly longer, as fermentation processes vary, and can take anywhere from a few days to months.

And to answer your question: yes, you’re all invited to the next tasting party.

For more information on the San Francisco Homebrewers Guild, see our Q&A.

 

BART resists safety reforms in labor negotiations

Michael Redmond
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1
BART resists safety reforms in labor negotiations

BART maintenance workers training under safety instructor Saul Almanza are taught this most important lesson: the objective when you go to work is to come home afterward.

He remembers two BART engineers who were hit and killed by the trains they were charged with repairing: Robert Rhodes in 2001, and James Strickland in 2008. Almanza imagines the dark tunnels where the safe places to stand are small and the lighting is scarce. He says he thinks of Rhodes and Strickland every day.

As talks between BART labor unions and management resumed Sept. 9, negotiations over safety overhauls had stalled, according to representatives from SEIU Local 1021. On Sept. 11, union members on the negotiating team — which includes Almanza — released a chart of fines the transit agency received from the California Occupational Safety and Health Administration, stemming from those accidents.

The chart shows 20 citations from OSHA since 2001 that the unions said have been unaddressed. BART management, unsurprisingly, disputes this. The list shows incidents as minor as rain getting into a fare gate and as major as the two aforementioned deaths. All told, the safety fines add up to $192,375.

The complaints were also listed on CAL/OSHA’s website, with additional details revealing that some of the investigations into the complaints were closed, contrary to the union’s claim. But that doesn’t mean the underlying causes of the problems have been solved, and they remain a sticking point in the negotiations between BART management and SEIU.

BART spokesperson Rick Rice said the lighting issues that led to Rhodes’ death will soon be resolved. Strickland’s death was a separate issue, though, as dense vegetation blocked a driver’s line of sight, leading to the mechanic’s death. That was also addressed, Rice said.

“Starting next year there’s $4.5 million allocated by the board to improve all the lighting,” Rice told the Guardian, and that other changes have made the tunnels safer since the 2001 accident.

But Almanza said he won’t believe it until he sees it in writing. So far, that hasn’t happened.

“The only change that took place was they added signage to the location saying you can’t enter the area without ‘simple’ approval,” Almanza said. Simple approval is a process where the worker recites a waiver that absolves BART of fault should they be injured or die. “They make you proclaim that you won’t interfere with operations, and it means if you delay something or die, it’s your fault.” Robert Bright, a train mechanic at the Hayward BART shop, also told us he was worried about safety conditions for BART workers. In our previous coverage, “Tales from the Tracks,” he said he’s seen workers crushed under machinery and electrocuted due to lax safety conditions. CAL/OSHA’s required changes are simple enough, requiring trained electricians to shut off power to the third rails and remove power breakers before maintenance crews work on the tracks to prevent the power from accidentally being switched back on. Almanza said the procedure saves lives. But BART management has paid its lawyers to resist the changes recommended by CAL/OSHA, documentation shows. Recent minutes from BART Board of Directors show the board voted unanimously to retain legal services from law firm Glynn and Finley to “mount a vigorous defense” against the safety citations issued by OSHA, saying the recommended changes were unnecessary and would have little effect on safety. Meeting minutes show the directors don’t think it’s a necessary procedure, but Almanza contends that it’s a cost-saving measure, since electricians must be paid to remove the breakers. “If this prohibition is implemented, it would drastically change the way BART performs maintenance operations with no anticipated improvement in safety,” according to meeting minutes. It went on to state that the procedure introduces additional safety risks, which Almanza denies. The board then moved to approve a $188,000 increase for legal services to challenge the CAL/OSHA changes — almost as much as the agency paid in fines for safety violations in the first place.

Domestic workers may get labor rights

Michael Redmond
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3

The California Legislature gave final approval to the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights on Sept. 12, legislation sponsored by Assemblymember Tom Ammiano (D-SF) to finally extend some labor rights to this largely female and immigrant workforce. Advocates are hopeful that Gov. Jerry Brown will sign it this time.

As we reported in a Guardian cover story, “Do we care?” (March 28), domestic and farm workers are the only two categories of employees exempted from federal labor law, and the caregiving professions are consistently undervalued in our economic and political systems. Last year, Brown vetoed the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights, expressing the concern that it might hurt the economy and cost jobs.

But advocates for the measure came back even stronger this year than last, and they recently accepted a set of amendments in the Senate that weaken the bill but may make it more palatable to Gov. Brown, including eliminating the requirement for rest and meal breaks and giving the measure a three-year sunset and commission to review its impacts.

“We’ve had discussions with the administration and we think we’re on the right track to get it signed,” Ammiano’s Press Secretary Carlos Alcala told the Guardian.

He emphasized that the bill still retains the requirement that domestic workers, who routinely work more than 40 hours per week, are entitled to overtime pay, something that Ammiano also emphasized in a prepared statement.

“This is a historic moment,” Ammiano said. “This now goes to the governor for his signature. That will give these workers, mostly women, the right to be paid fairly for overtime worked.”

Katie Joaquin, campaign coordinator the California Domestic Workers Coalition, said she’s excited to see the bill pass and hopeful that Brown will sign it this time.

“If he signs this bill, California would be the first state to give daily overtime rights to all domestic workers,” she said.

Gov. Brown has until Oct. 13 to sign it. 

Bay Bridge turns Brown

Michael Redmond
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15

The California Senate gave its blessing to the rename the western span of the Bay Bridge after former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown on Sept. 12, blatantly disregarding its own rules and strong local opposition to the proposal.

Since ACR 65 is a nonbinding resolution, Gov. Jerry Brown cannot veto it even though he went on record earlier this week saying the 77-year-old bridge should keep the same name it’s always had.

San Francisco Sens. Mark Leno and Leland Yee both voted in favor of the resolution.

As the Senate gave final approval to the measure, attorneys G. Whitney Leigh and Lee Hepner filed a complaint seeking injunctive relief to overturn the resolution on behalf of their client, good government advocate Bob Planthold.

At a press conference, Planthold said the lawsuit “has nothing to do with Willie,” but rather sought to remedy what he perceived as state lawmakers ignoring their own rules, including reserving such honors for the deceased, a state of affairs he characterized as “Orwellian.”

Leigh questioned why Sacramento legislators were in such a rush to rename part of the Bay Bridge when construction of the eastern span had only just been completed, following long delays and overruns partly caused by Brown when he was mayor.

“There is a shadiness and irregularity to this procedure,” Leigh said.

The suit alleges “arbitrary suspension and/or violation of legislative rules and policies” to fast track the legislation. Specifically, Hepner said, lawmakers ignored an established timeline for introducing new proposals, instead allowing ACR 65 to be submitted four months after the formal deadline.

Formal Assembly criteria states that clear community consensus must be in place when a major piece of public infrastructure is renamed. Yet in the case of the Willie L. Brown Jr. Bridge, no such consensus exists.

Leigh is the former law partner of Matt Gonzalez, a former president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, who joined former board presidents Quentin Kopp and Aaron Peskin to formally call on Senate pro Tem Darrell Steinberg to stop the resolution from going forward.

On Aug. 29, the trio fired off an open letter to Steinberg in an attempt to halt the proposal from going any further, claiming “there exists significant concern in our community that naming the Bay Bridge for him is not appropriate.”

Peskin had a more colorful take on Brown and bridge when he spoke to the Guardian: “I think they should name the old eastern span, that they’re demolishing, after him. You know why? Because it’s old and crooked and a danger to society.”

Fighting foreclosures

Michael Redmond
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1
Fighting foreclosures

joe@sfbg.com

It will be a long war, but for now, Richmond is winning.

Two battles in the start of the city of Richmond’s war on foreclosures were fought and won in the past week. A US District Court of Appeals judge dismissed Wells Fargo’s lawsuit against Richmond’s controversial plan to use eminent domain to save residents with underwater mortgages (see “Not for sale,” Sept. 3). And Mayor Gayle McLaughlin successfully fought off legislation at the Richmond City Council to torpedo the plan before it started.

“I’m willing to go as high as the Supreme Court to settle this on behalf of our community,” McLaughlin told us. These are the first fledgling steps in that long fight, a fight McLaughlin calls a just cause.

Half of all mortgages in Richmond are underwater, and as homes get foreclosed upon, the problems stack up: blighted neighborhoods, declining property tax revenues, public employee layoffs, rising crime, and homeless families. To stem the tide of foreclosures, Richmond teamed with Mortgage Resolution Partners (MRP) to attempt to buy the loans of 624 underwater mortgages and allow the owners to keep their homes.

Richmond’s government sent out offers, and it is still waiting to hear back from the owners of the loans.

The controversy comes when the banks that hold the loans refuse to sell. In that case, Richmond would invoke the power of eminent domain to seize the mortgage loans.

Wells Fargo said in its lawsuit that this is a plan to line the pockets of MRP and the city of Richmond, a greedy and unconstitutional land grab. Eminent domain has never been used for this purpose, but as the judge noted in the lawsuit’s first hearing Sept. 12 in San Francisco, the plan has yet to be acted on.

“Okay, let’s end the suspense, I don’t believe (the case) is ripe for determination,” Judge Charles Breyer told the attorneys from Wells Fargo. “There are a series of steps that can or cannot take place…. If they do take place, that’s the time for the court to take a look at it.”

Breyer noted that if and when Richmond wanted to use eminent domain to seize mortgage loans, the council would need to file a resolution of necessity through state court. At that point, he could act.

On Sept. 16, the case was dismissed. Too little has happened, and it is entirely too early to make any decisions, Breyer said.

Stacey Leyton, a lawyer representing Richmond in the lawsuit, explained the judge’s decision plainly: “Courts are not supposed to review legislative actions before the (legislative body) has decided which action to take.”

The Guardian reached out to Wells Fargo but we were told that it had nothing to say beyond its court filings, and referred us to the investors in the loans, of which Wells Fargo is a trustee.

But why is Wells Fargo pushing so fast for the courts to intervene? The eminent domain plan could mean a possible loss of revenue for Wells Fargo and the investors it represents, sending chills down the spine of Wall Street, a representative of MRP said.

MRP founder John Vlahoplus told us the eminent domain tactic is powerful because for Wells Fargo, legally challenging every municipality in the United States is much tougher than paying off a few fat cats in Congress.

So the stakes are high: if Richmond wins the eminent domain battle, cities across the country could use the tactic to rescue underwater mortgages, and the families that would otherwise lose their homes, swinging the balance of power from Wall Street toward cities.

Score one for Richmond, and zip for Wells Fargo, so far.

 

LOCAL FRONT

But the real drama happened closer to home. Before Richmond could fight the enemies from without, it fought the enemies within.

On Sept. 10, Richmond’s controversial plan for preventing home foreclosures using eminent domain was almost torpedoed at the Richmond City Council meeting, where its members waged a nasty fight before more than 300 attendees.

Advocates for city intervention against the banks won when the council voted 5-2 against a resolution to rescind the city’s offer to purchase 624 underwater mortgages and halt any effort by the city to seize those mortgages through eminent domain.

A separate resolution by Mayor McLaughlin to establish a joint powers authority, uniting cities to battle litigation against the eminent domain plan, also passed.

Vice Mayor Courtland “Corky” Boozé and Councilmember Nathaniel Bates sponsored the resolution attacking the plan, and cast the only votes in its favor.

Boozé and Bates said the city risks bankruptcy if Well Fargo wins its lawsuit, putting Richmond’s financial solvency on the line, but their colleagues were dubious.

“My vote is not supposed to be if (Wall Street investors) are a bunch of jerks and I want to stick it to them,” Councilmember Jim Rogers said to the audience.

After the city laid off a third of the government’s workforce in lean economic years, Rogers has reason to worry. City Manager Bill Lindsay laid out the risks for those in the auditorium.

Because no city has ever tried this before, he said, no liability insurance exists for this kind of work, which MRP has acknowledged. “If you believe the potential loss (of a lawsuit) is catastrophic, it’s important to acknowledge that’s an issue,” he said.

He also said it was tough for the city go it alone as a single entity, explaining the need for a joint powers authority, which would build a coalition of cities against Wells Fargo and other litigants.

State law requires a supermajority of the council, five members, to back any eminent domain action and only at the time that it would take place, he said.

Hours of back and forth passed between the city manager and Boozé who, after some arguing, asked the audience in frustration, “Are 110,000 people worth fighting Wall Street for?”

The crowd roared its answer immediately: “YES!”

The ideological split of the audience was clear: Eminent domain supporters wore yellow shirts with a logo of the activist group Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, and those against wore red shirts branded “Stop Investor Greed.”

Those sporting the red shirts were mostly from the real estate industry, and in public comment they generally expressed that if someone were to lose their home, well, “so what?”

Lisa Johnson, clad in red, said, “My house is an investment, not a right.”

A representative from Richmond’s Council of Industries asked the mayor to reconsider the eminent domain plan, and to rescind the initiative.

Jerry Feagley, whose Feagley Realtors has sold homes since 1966, said the plan risks damaging all of Richmond’s ability to get credit. He was a seemingly mild-mannered man who is exactly who you’d picture if you think of a businessman from the ’50s, gray suit and all. “If this would go into effect, this would change loans in the entire country,” he said, passionately.

Well, that’s the idea, the supporters countered.

“I was at the March on Washington with Martin Luther King 50 years ago. Yes, I’m that old,” said one woman. She was bent over with age but spoke with volume. “That’s exactly what we have to do. We’re going to have to meet power with power and challenge the status quo.”

More than 50 supporters spoke at the podium. The meeting started at 7pm, and stretched on well past 1am. If there was one central theme to their sentiments, it was this: Richmond has hit rock bottom, and now is the time to fight back.

Councilmember Tom Butt put it in plain terms. “What we’re voting for is a giant game of chicken, and it’s clear two of my colleagues have blinked,” he said, referring to Boozé and Bates. “I’m not blinking.”

The council voted, and amid the turmoil and arguing and anger, the Boozé and Bates measure was rejected.

Having already lost once that night, Bates did not fare well when time came to vote on forming a joint powers authority. El Monte may be the first to join, McLaughlin said, which would help homeowners in need who are often people of color. Bates countered that McLaughlin should look out for “her people” and not try to use “his people” as a front for her legislation. “You don’t speak for my community,” he said, referring to African Americans. When another black council member, Jovanka Beckles, spoke up to thank her “white brothers and sisters” for joining in a fight for justice, Bates was uncompromising. “You are not African American,” he told her. Boozé also had words for the other dissenting African American Councilmember Jael Myrick. “One day you’ll have to stand up and be black,” he said. McLaughlin’s measure then passed 4-3, with council members Boozé, Bates and Rogers dissenting. The last remaining supporters waved their yellow flags and the dwindling crowd clad in yellow shirts left victorious, for now.

Pelosi defies history and her district

Michael Redmond
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57

OPINION How is it that, despite deep congressional opposition to an American-led war on Syria, the representative for one of the nation’s most progressive districts, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, has been among President Obama’s most ardent backers of war?

While Russia’s deal for Syria to turn over its chemical weapons offers a temporary pause in the march to war, the arrangement is fragile and Obama — with support from Pelosi — continues to threaten military action that could lead to a disastrous widening of bloodshed and chaos in Syria and beyond.

What’s particularly outrageous about the pro-war push from Pelosi and US Sens. Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein, also from the Bay Area, is their willful dismissal of history. Did they somehow miss the well-documented memos on US wars and interventions? You know, the ones that list American lies on Iraq’s WMDs, provocations in Vietnam’s Gulf of Tonkin, and the long, long list of CIA-backed coups of democratically elected leaders in Iran, Guatemala, Chile, and beyond?

The nightmare in Syria needs an international solution—but given our ugly track record, how can anyone place faith in American-led military intervention?

This history offers a distressingly reliable prologue to the present. In Afghanistan and Iraq, the US expended vast amounts of blood and treasure attacking brutal thugs it supported for years. How can we expect different results from the same military-security state apparatus that has, for decades, undermined democracies, aided thugs and dictators, and trumped up wars based on lies? How can anyone believe that the US military and security state complex has suddenly found a veracity and moral center it has always profoundly lacked?

There is no question that international pressure and diplomacy must be brought to bear on Bassar al-Assad’s sickening Syrian regime, and that chemical weapons, and nukes for that matter, must be wiped off the planet. But the US has an unrivaled record of using these tools of mass killing, and has zero credibility as a force for peacemaking.

The hypocrisies Pelosi chooses to ignore run deeper. The US refuses to enforce the chemical weapons ban on Israel, for instance. And remember the saber-rattling last year over Iran’s nuclear program? Not a word about Israel’s nukes, not to mention America’s. Yet both Israel and the US have a well-documented history of outright aggression, where Iran has none.

The San Francisco Chronicle explained Pelosi’s war support as part of her Democratic Party leadership duties, quoting UC Berkeley professor Eric Schickler: “One of the jobs of the party’s leader is to support the president of your party, except under the most extenuating circumstances. If she didn’t have such liberal credentials already, she would be in much more vulnerable position.”

While party leadership and allegiance may be a factor, consider also that Pelosi, Boxer, and Feinstein take in far more dollars from pro-Israel lobbies than do their counterparts (Boxer got more than twice the Senate average, and Pelosi roughly six times the congressional average, according to research by MapLight and Open Secrets).

Despite some loud and colorful protests by Code Pink and other groups, it’s sadly true that Pelosi hasn’t been very vulnerable: San Francisco’s political leadership has done little to let her know how deeply out of step she is with her district.

In years past, the Board of Supervisors has passed resolutions opposing US military interventions; now, they and the Democratic County Central Committee are silent. Where is the outrage and pushback within Pelosi’s district? Pelosi’s hawkish stance on Syria follows her lamentable defense in July of the NSA spying program. In both cases, these are policies that Pelosi opposed and so many progressives protested vigorously when they were enacted by President George W. Bush. Where is the mass outrage now?

Legal foes invited to weigh in on healthcare policy

Michael Redmond
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4

A few years ago, the Golden Gate Restaurant Association lost a legal battle it waged over the employer mandates in the city’s landmark Health Care Security Ordinance, a universal healthcare program that has provided safety-net services for the city’s uninsured since its passage in 2006, partially through the Healthy San Francisco program.

Composed of San Francisco restaurant owners, GGRA took issue with a mandatory employer spending contribution designed to help employees cover healthcare costs. While the city’s flagship healthcare program ultimately emerged unscathed, the lawsuit went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court and consumed city staff time and legal expenses.

Now that the federal Affordable Care Act is poised to begin, with enrollment in low-income programs starting in October, a new debate has surfaced over whether current employer requirements should stay the same under Obamacare. While ardent supporters of HCSO have urged the city not to make any drastic policy changes because the existing system can help low-wage workers take advantage of federally subsidized healthcare options, local business interests have signaled that they think it’s time to scale back employer contributions.

In late August, representatives from the city’s Department of Public Health sent out invitations to various stakeholders to join an advisory body called the Universal Healthcare Council, which will be charged with “reviewing local policies against the backdrop of the federal law.” Despite the failed, messy legal battle that nearly undermined Healthy SF just a few years ago, and the more recent scandals involving restaurants fraudulently using customer surcharges and still stiffing employees (see “Check please,” April 23), an invitation was sent to Rob Black, executive director of GGRA. For the sake of uninsured employees throughout San Francisco, let’s hope the restaurant association doesn’t have another lawsuit up its sleeve.

Challenge Mayor Lee and his lies

Michael Redmond
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67

EDITORIAL In the long history of San Francisco political corruption caused by Pacific Gas & Electric’s willingness to do and spend whatever it takes to hold onto the energy monopoly that it illegally obtained generations ago, in violation of the federal Raker Act, there have been countless ugly and shameful episodes, many of them chronicled in the pages of the Bay Guardian.

Mayor Ed Lee’s misleading Sept. 10 testimony to the Board of Supervisors, where he deliberately distorted CleanPowerSF and defended the dubious actions of his appointees to kill the program, ranks right up there with some of the worst episodes (see “Power struggle,” page 12). If there were any doubts about Lee’s lack of political integrity and independence, about his unwillingness stand up to his corporate benefactors on the behalf of the people he was elected to serve, this appalling performance should settle them.

It was bad enough when PG&E used money from San Francisco ratepayers to bury public power advocates under an avalanche of lies, fear-mongering, and the testimony of paid political allies every election when its monopoly was being challenged, making it virtually impossible to have an honest conversation about the city’s energy and environmental needs.

But now that advocates for consumer choice and renewable energy have spent more than a decade developing a program that doesn’t require a popular vote, is competitive with PG&E’s rates, would create city-owned green energy projects serving residents for generations to come, and which was approved by a veto-proof majority on the Board of Supervisors, Mayor Lee has stooped to new lows in a desperate and transparent ploy to stop it.

Once again, as he did during his rash decision to remove Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi from office before even investigating his most serious official misconduct allegations, Mayor Lee has blithely created what Sen. Mark Leno calls a “Charter crisis.” Then, it was over the question of when one elected official should remove another; now, it is whether a trio of mayoral appointees can usurp the authority of the elected Board of Supervisors, the top policymaking body under the City Charter.

Relying on tortured logic and Clinton-esque legalese backflips doesn’t justify the SFPUC commissioners refusal to do their jobs — and it would be deemed official misconduct by a less corrupt mayor. But this mayor sees his job as simply carrying water for the people who put him there, whether that be Willie Brown and his longtime client PG&E, or venture capital Ron Conway and the companies that Lee is heaping with unprecedented tax breaks (see “Corporate welfare boom,” page 14). Please, isn’t there someone out there willing to challenge this corruption and run for mayor? This city, and the future generations living in the warming world we’re creating, deserve better.

Power struggle

Michael Redmond
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51
Power struggle

steve@sfbg.com

Jason Fried could barely believe what was coming out of the squawk box in his office at the San Francisco Local Agency Formation Commission on Sept. 10, as he listened to Mayor Ed Lee describe the CleanPowerSF program Fried had spent years helping to develop.

The program would give San Franciscans the choice of buying their electricity from clean, renewable energy sources rather than Pacific Gas & Electric’s oil, coal, hydro, and nuclear dominated power portfolio, a program that was finally able to become competitive with PG&E on price and still fund the creation of local clean energy projects.

But the program that Lee described — which three of his appointees on the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission have recently decided to block, against the wishes of the Board of Supervisors supermajority that approved it (see “Fizzling energy,” Aug. 21) — sounded nothing like the program that Fried, LAFCo’s senior program officer, knows so well.

As Lee described it, CleanPowerSF is “based on vague promises” and has “questionable environmental benefits,” claiming it has “gotten progressively more expensive” and “creates no local jobs.”

“What the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission did was in the best interests of the city,” Lee said. The city has spent untold hours and dollars over the last decade developing and approving CleanPowerSF.

“It was very frustrating to watch, particularly when you see him just making stuff up,” said Fried. “If he wants to be against CCAs [Community Choice Aggregation, that state-created program the CleanPowerSF is a part of], fine, just say that…But he wasn’t even getting his numbers right.”

 

LIES, DAMN LIES, AND STATISTICS

Questioned by the Guardian following his monthly mayoral policy discussion at the board, where all five questions from frustrated supervisors were about CleanPowerSF, Lee cast himself as sticking to the facts.

“I know that elements of this are somewhat complicated because you have to actually read a lot of volumes of materials to understand the choice aggregation program,” Lee said, claiming, “I’m taking it exactly from facts that were presented.”

But in reality, Lee was cherry-picking facts that were either out-of-date or presented in a misleading way, while ignoring inconvenient questions like how the city can still achieve its clean energy goals without it, or why his appointees are subverting broadly supported public policy on technical grounds that appear to exceed their authority.

Take Lee’s claim that the CleanPowerSF program approved by the board “was 95 percent renewable on day one,” which he used to support his argument that “when the final project is so vastly different than the original intent, the SFPUC has to intervene.”

Lee is referring to the “three buckets” from which the program will draw its energy, as defined by the California Public Utilities Commission. Bucket 1 is the gold standard: juice coming directly from certified renewable energy sources in California. Bucket 2 is renewable energy that isn’t reliable and must be “firmed and shaped” by other energy sources, such as wind or solar farms supplemented by fossil fuels when there’s little wind or sunshine. And Bucket 3 is Renewable Energy Credits, which support creation of renewable energy facilities or green power purchased from other states.

When the board approved the program in September 2012, the SFPUC called for it to secure 10 percent of the power from Bucket 1, 85 percent from Bucket 2, and 5 percent from Bucket 3, although these were just guidelines and the SFPUC was specifically authorized to change that mix.

Lee and other critics of the program decried the program’s cost of more than 14 cents per kilowatt-hour, while supporters worried the price would cause more customers to opt-out, so the SFPUC decided to allow more RECs, while also substantially increasing the amount of guaranteed green power.

“The difference between buckets two and three is not that big a difference,” Fried said, noting the Bucket 2 can actually include a substantial amount of dirty energy. “It really depends on how you’re firming and shaping.”

So the SFPUC increased the size of Bucket 1 to 25 percent and Bucket 3 to 75 percent, with idea being that RECs are only an interim step toward issuance of revenue-bonds to build renewable energy projects that would eventually fill Bucket 1 to overflowing. All for the not-to-exceed rate of 11.5 cents per kilowatt-hour that the SFPUC is refusing to approve.

“Our entire mix would be 100 percent greenhouse-gas-free, but the mayor is ignoring that because it doesn’t fit his ‘green’ argument,” Fried said, also noting that it would be generated in-state by union workers. “PG&E can’t make that same claim.”

CPUC statistics show PG&E derives less than the state-mandated 20 percent of its energy from clean, renewable sources, and that the percentage of its portfolio that is greenhouse gas-free actually dropped in 2012, to 51 percent from 59 percent in 2011. And despite Lee’s emphasis on local jobs, PG&E’s three largest solar projects built in 2012 are outside California.

By contrast, CPSF contractor Shell Energy North America wrote in an Aug. 12 letter that in addition to setting aside $1.5 million for local buildout after its first year, which “should create local jobs,” it is now negotiating in-state wind and hydroelectric (“operated by union labor”) contracts to meet the program’s demands.

But at this point, supporters of the program are running out of options to get that contract approved.

 

“CHARTER CRISIS”

CleanPowerSF has broad political support in San Francisco, from Sups. David Campos, John Avalos, and other progressives, to moderates including Sup. Scott Wiener and state Sen. Mark Leno, who authored legislation to protect nascent CCAs from PG&E meddling and has been a steadfast supporter of CleanPowerSF.

“There’s a constitutional crisis, or a [City] Charter crisis, of sorts,” Leno said, referring to the standoff. “The legislative body has been unequivocal in its desire to proceed and it’s not for this commission to interfere with that decision.”

Leno said PG&E and its allies have played strong behind-the-scenes roles in sabotaging this program. “They are definitely exerting their influence,” Leno said, “they have never stopped trying to derail this.” SFPUC Chair Art Torres, who is leading the obstruction, didn’t return a Guardian call for comment.

If there is a silver lining, Leno said it’s that “PG&E has had to present its own version of green energy. But the two can coexist. We want competition.”

So does Fried, LAFCo, and all of the supervisors who sit on that commission, which has long tried to break PG&E’s monopoly.

“It’s close to checkmate, but we’re trying to breathe new life into this,” Sup. John Avalos, who sits on LAFCo, told us. “Part of the politics can be seen in the mayor’s statements, which are full of misinformation.”

Sup. David Campos, also on LAFCo, told us CleanPowerSF is “a good program, and it’s consistent with what the Board of Supervisors approved. I think it’s a mistake for the city not to move on this and it’s a bad thing for consumers.”

The newest member of LAFCo, Sup. London Breed, authored a resolution supporting CPSF that the Board of Supervisors was set to consider on Sept. 17, after Guardian press time. It recites a history of strong support for the program by the Board of Supervisors, starting with a unanimous votes in 2004 and 2007 to launch the CCA and continuing through the supermajority approval of CleanPowerSF and a $20 million appropriation to launch it in September 2012.

It noted that the SFPUC held 18 meetings on the program between September 2012 and August 2013, and that its Rate Fairness Board determined that rates for the Phase 1 are “technically fair.”

The resolution emphasizes an important governance issue at stake: “Irrespective of the particular policy decision, the Board of Supervisors must protect and defend its authority to make policy decisions.”

Yet there’s been a concerted effort to undermine CleanPowerSF this summer, led by appointees and allies of Lee and PG&E.

At the Aug. 6 Commission on the Environment meeting, Commissioner Joshua Arce pushed Department of the Environment head Melanie Nutter to renounce CPSF as no longer a green power program, something she refused to do. Arce fell a vote short of approving a resolution characterizing the program as not meeting “all of the commission’s original goals” and urging the SFPUC “to work with the Department of the Environment to craft a program that is acceptable to the San Francisco Environment Commission.”

Breed said she was disappointed in Lee’s approach, although she takes him at his word when he says he’s open to alternatives.

“The questions were answered, but there wasn’t any closure in terms of what this means for the future,” Breed said. “If not this program, what’s the alternative?”

If the city is going to meet its greenhouse gas reduction goals, which call for reducing 1990’s carbon emissions by 25 percent by 2017 and 40 percent by 2025, it’s going to have to offer some alternative.

“We need to be aggressive about moving in this direction,” Breed said, “and we need to make sure the public has an alternative to PG&E.”

 

Bikes to books

Sasha Cuttler
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0

San Francisco has been home to some of the true giants of American literature and poetry, from Jack London and Mark Twain to Jack Kerouac and Lawrence Ferlinghetti. To honor that past, 12 streets were renamed for these and other writers on Oct. 2, 1988, and there will be a 25th anniversary celebration of that dedication coming up on Oct. 6. So the Guardian worked with writer Nicole Gluckstern, Burrito Justice, and City Lights Bookstore to create this Literary Bike Tour map that attendees will follow that day, starting at 11am at Jack London Street and concluding with a reading at 2pm in Jack Kerouac Alley. So join the festivities or just take the tour on your own. 

Self service

Sasha Cuttler
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1
Self service

THEATER Sitting in the Exit Café with a can of Guinness and the San Francisco Fringe Festival program is one of life’s modest but absorbing pleasures. For those without much inside knowledge on the lineup (currently encompassing 36 companies and 158 performances), it’s a little like taking a vacation by pitching darts at a wall map. There were several immediate sub-themes to choose from for 2013. I could have picked shows with bananas in the title, for instance. But for whatever reason, I dived into the service and servitude sector.

Of course, the Fringe, now in its 22nd year, is a lottery-based operation, so it is fate’s fingers that pluck these patterns from the cultural whirl. At the same time, you don’t need the I Ching to know that serving the rich is about all that’s left of the economy for most of us, making it hardly surprising to find so many stories of bartenders, wait staff, sex workers, and mermaids-who-are-also-sex-workers floating in the pool.

Things began on a high note with Jill Vice’s witty and deft solo, The Tipped & the Tipsy, which brings the querulous regulars of a skid-row bar to life vividly and with real (quasi-Depression era) charm. Without set or costume changes, Vice (who developed the piece with Dave Dennison and David Ford) proves a protean physical performer, seamlessly inhabiting the oddball outcasts lined up before bartender Candy every day at Happy’s — names as loaded as the clientele. With a love of the underdog and strong writing and acting at its core, Tipsy breezes by, leaving a superlative buzz.

O Best Beloved isn’t about service work, but the theme still crops up in the opening story — “How the Camel Got Her Hump” — an unburdened beast (played by Sam Jackson) whose relaxed work ethic draws negative attention. It’s one of three scheduled children’s tales by Rudyard Kipling (adapted by actor Joan Howard and director Rebecca Longworth), delivered by a rowdy six-person cast of storytellers. This playful piece is somewhat hectic and a bit garbled (in speech that can get lost in the reverberations of the Exit’s main stage). But it’s colorfully worked up (in costuming and properties as well as performances) and no doubt ideal for families or those happy to revel in light insouciance and unyielding silliness.

Sean Andries and Siouxsie Q’s Fish-Girl, meanwhile, has limited charm as a carny fable of doomed love between a nerdy young man (Andries, who also directed) and the freak-show beauty (Q, in sequined tail and half-shell bra) he’s hooked on. Co-creator Siouxsie Q hosts “The Whorecast” podcast showcasing the voices of American sex workers, and the mermaid’s plight takes on literal and metaphoric overtones of sex work. But the bland love story at the center keeps things bathtub shallow, albeit buoyed by a few decent songs belted out by poised songwriter Siouxsie Q to her own accompaniment on the ukulele — that spinet of the well-bred mermaid.

Hard on Fish-Girl‘s floppy heel came The Women of Tu-Na House, completing the evening’s sub-sub-theme of the aquatic erotic. (For cross-referencing purposes: Another bartender’s tale, with fish tails too, stood out in the program but was not seen in time for review: Alexa Fitzpatrick’s sushi-restaurant confessional, Serving Bait to Rich People.) Nancy Eng’s solo is a smart, sassy, and blushingly frank account of the workers at an Asian massage parlor. Although Eng’s characters are not always readily distinct, she marshals an unexpected angle and winning élan in bringing this worthwhile story to life.

Not every show in the Fringe need conform to a surface or sub theme. Dark Porch Theatre’s StormStressLenz brings its own thematic taxonomy with it, in director Martin Schwartz’s uneven but intriguing, vivacious remixing of the work of Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz (1751–1792), the Baltic German author of the proto-Romantic, anti-rational Sturm und Drang school of literature.

Schwartz’s Lenz remix comes across as an alternately cool and hyperactive investigation of the essence of melodrama, employing a fast-changing four-person ensemble (Nathan Tucker, Margery Fairchild, Ryan Hayes, Meg Hurtado) in a series of scenes shorn of their immediate context and aggregated under various section headings (“Love,” “Tricks,” “Sorrow,” etc.) — subheads called out by Schwartz, seated at a table to the left of the stage calmly scrutinizing the action, asking the lighting booth for the odd musical interlude (MC5 one minute, Brahms the next), and bouncing his palm lightly on a desk bell to trigger the beginning and the end of each scene. These range widely and wildly, making for a raucous but tonally patchy hour. The broadest and subtlest range of characters comes from Tucker and Fairchild, who between them suggest some of the darker elements otherwise left out of a largely comic romp. But if the show leaves one wanting more complexity and shading, its eccentric enterprise is still worth a stab, as they say.

Finally, San Francisco dancer and performance maker Cara Rose DeFabio’s admirable solo strikes its own idiosyncratic tone, or rather many of them, in another intriguing investigation, this time of the online afterlife to which we are all increasingly subject — whether willingly or not. After the Tone is a smart and provoking exploration of the intersections of grief, technology, memory, ideology, and individuality that uses DeFabio’s sly narrative persona, movement, video, and audio pastiche, and interactive audience participation (via those celebrated and hated cellphones) to productively turn over a subject too close to most of us to be clearly grasped otherwise. *

SAN FRANCISCO FRINGE FESTIVAL

Through Sept. 21, $12.99 or less

Exit Theatreplex

156 Eddy, SF

www.sffringe.org

For a longer version of this review, visit www.sfbg.com/pixel_vision.

 

The Selector

Sasha Cuttler
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0

WEDNESDAY 9/11

 

Jimmy Cliff

At age 65, reggae legend Jimmy Cliff is experiencing perhaps one of the greatest bursts of artistic productivity in all of his five-decade-long and counting career. He’s inspired countless other musicians over the years, including Bay Area punk rocker Tim Armstrong of Rancid and Operation Ivy, who was brought aboard to produce and perform on Cliff’s newest album, last year’s excellent Rebirth. The record includes an outstanding cover of the Clash’s “Guns of Brixton,” which references Cliff’s movie and song “The Harder They Come” in its lyrics — bringing the music full circle, as it were. Don’t miss the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer when he hits the Fillmore stage tonight. (Sean McCourt)

8pm, $39.50

Fillmore

1805 Geary, SF

(415) 346-6000

www.thefillmore.com

WEDNESDAY 9/11

 

Chris Hardwick

In addition to appearing in a vast array of television (hello, Singled Out), film, radio, and online productions over the past 20 or so years, Chris Hardwick helped found Nerdist Industries, which has grown from one podcast in 2010 into a vast cross-medium mecca for all that proudly embrace their inner geek. Hardwick comes to the city this weekend with his hilarious stand-up act, and based on his guest spots at recent Wootstock events, he’s sure to riff on both his Nerdist loves, as well other awkward yet uproariously comedic facets of life. (McCourt)

Wed/11-Thu/12, 8pm; Fri/13, 8 and 10:15pm; Sat/14, 7:30 and 9:45pm, $25

Cobb’s Comedy Club

915 Columbus, SF

(415) 928-4320

www.cobbscomedyclub.com

THURSDAY 9/12

 

Secrets like These

While Enrico Labayen is a respected choreographer on his own terms, he also has a curious and generous spirit, opening his Labayen Dance Company to other dance makers. For this program, jam-packed with two of his own world premieres in addition to rep work, he invited Anandha Ray to present her new Quimera Project for which she’ll bring a chorus of up to 30 tribal belly dancers. Additionally, two company members will debut pieces. Laura Bernasconi’s Nourishment and Hunger will draw on ballet, classical Indian Odissi, and acro-yoga. For his new Secrets Like These, Victor Talledos is creating a narrative to music by Diana Krall. Labayen’s small company also offers performance opportunities to dancers from around the world: Daiane Lopes da Silva (Brazil), Sandrine Cassini (France), Talledos (Mexico). (Rita Felciano)

Through Sat/14, 8pm; Sun/15, 3pm, $20–$25.

ODC Theater,

3153, 17th St, SF

(415) 853-9834

www.odctheater.org

THURSDAY 9/12

 

The Singularity

Back in March, when San Francisco filmmaker Doug Wolens was promoting his DIY iTunes hit The Singularity, he explained the meaning of the title: “the point in time when computers become smarter than people.” Some, including futurist Ray Kurzweil (one of the experts interviewed here), say it’s an inevitability — a thought-provoking idea, to say the least. Chat with Wolens in person at tonight’s screening of The Singularity as part of the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts’ “Local Boy Makes Good: New Bay Area Film” series; he’ll also be in residence at the Castro Theatre next week with a trio of his films, rounded out by 2000 environmental-activist profile Butterfly and 1996’s toke-tastic doc Weed. (Cheryl Eddy)

7pm, $10

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

701 Mission, SF

Also Mon/16, screenings begin at noon, $11

Castro Theatre

429 Castro, SF

thesingularityfilm.com/screenings

FRIDAY 9/13

 

“Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind”

Thirty plays in 60 minutes — that might sound like too much even for the most attention span-challenged theatergoers among us. Fortunately, the raucous Neo-Futurists troupe has been putting on the surreal channel surf known as “Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind” for 25 years in its hometown Chicago, and for 10 in New York — where it’s won a celebrity cult following — so it’s got this thing down to an almost metaphysical science. A night of semi-improv performance (a timer is set and the audience yells out the titles of the plays to be performed from a “menu”) that whiplashes from affecting dramatic to absurdist comedy, with plenty of good-natured silliness thrown in, TMLMTBGB is like a strobe of emotions and situations — plates, buckets, ice cubes, wigs, and stuffed animals usually go flying, as do many preconceived notions of what theater ought to be. (Marke B.)

Through Sept. 29, 8pm, $15

Boxcar Theatre

505 Natoma, SF

(415) 967-2227

www.boxcartheatre.org

sfneofuturists.com

FRIDAY 9/13

 

Death in June

Extremely depressing neofolk band Death in June is stopping by San Francisco for its long-awaited US tour. Initially starting as a post-punk, industrial project in the 1980s, the band shunned pretty-boy rock ideals, often donning ghoulish masks and costumes on stage. Death in June has given influence to plenty of contemporary bands such as metal band Agalloch and darkwave horde Faun, but the band isn’t without controversy of its own. It’s been known for using a skull, the totenkopf, synonymous with the Nazi movement. Often criticized for using SS insignia, the band has derided any and all accusations of fascism and white supremacy, being active in the British ’80s anti-fascist movement and playing in concerts such as “Rock Against Racism.” So back to the music: the group released Snow Bunker Tapes, guitar-backed versions of Peaceful Snow, on Neuropa this year. Get sad, get creepy, and slump over to the Mezzanine. (Erin Dage)

120 Minutes with oOoOO, DJ Omar, CHAUNCEY_CC

9pm, $30

Mezzanine

444 Jessie, SF

(415) 625-8880

www.mezzaninesf.com

SATURDAY 9/14

 

Autumn Moon Festival

This widely-attended cultural festival is the gold star of Chinatown events, filling its chaotic streets with even more buzz than normal and thousands of additional of people. A myriad of crafts, art, live music, dancers in costume, drumming groups, and curious attendees congregate for a fun and lively weekend each year. The Moon Festival, traditionally celebrated when the moon is said to be at its fullest and brightest of the year, gives families the opportunity to get together while enjoying great food and participating in the Lion and Dragon dances, both of which you don’t want to miss if you plan on attending. The whole weekend is an explosion of color and the perfect chance to learn a little more about Chinese culture. (Hillary Smith)

Through Sun/15, 11am-6pm, free

California and Grant, SF

www.moonfestival.org

SATURDAY 9/14

 

Atheist Film Festival

The Atheist Film Festival, now in its fifth year, is cheeky enough to refer to itself as “a film festival you can believe in” — which bodes well for the sort of programming one can expect. The fest packs a lot into a single day, including a world premiere (doc Hug an Atheist, about what it means to be an atheist in America today) and acclaimed narratives The Magdalene Sisters (2002) and Creation (2009). Plus, a trio of docs: fake-guru experiment Kumaré (2011); fundamentalism-in-public-schools exposé Sophia Investigates the Good News Club; and The Revisionaries, which won the Best Doc jury prize at the 2013 SF IndieFest. The power of film compels you! (Eddy)

Noon, $12 (festival pass, $45)

Roxie Theater

3117 16th St, SF

www.sfatheistfilmfestival.org

SATURDAY 9/14

 

Magic Trick

If there’s anything supernatural about the band Magic Trick, it’s in frontperson Tim Cohen’s seeming ability to be in several places at once. Between the Fresh & Onlys, solo projects, and work with other bands, his prolificacy makes you wonder. But more than witchcraft, magic tricks usually involve sleight of hand. With Cohen’s signature deep voice and romantic songwriting, Magic Trick at times directly echoes the Fresh & Onlys. Don’t be fooled: With three added band members and a minimalism that makes the music more contemplative and a little stranger, Magic Trick surprises. See what tricks lie up the record sleeve on the band’s new album, The Glad Birth of Love, which the Chapel will celebrate on Saturday. (Laura Kerry)

With the Range of Light Wilderness, Pure Bliss, Cool Ghouls

9pm, $12

Chapel

777 Valencia, SF

(415) 551-5157

www.thechapelsf.com

SATURDAY 9/14

 

Rock The Bells

The country’s pre-eminent hip-hop festival will coming to the Bay Area this Saturday and Sunday, bringing a large and diverse crew of rap acts. There’s something for every kind of hip-hop head at this festival. For fans of weird rap, there’s Danny Brown, for fans of ratchet rap, there’s Juicy J, for the homers, there’s a E-40-Too $hort duet and IamSu!, and for fans of hologram rap there will be performances from hologram Eazy-E and ODB. For those you taking Caltrain from the city, remember that the train only runs once a hour and takes more than a hour to get to Mountain View. (George McIntire)

Also Sun/15, 11am, $65–$239

Shoreline Amphitheater

One Amphitheatre Pkwy, Mountain View

(800) 745-3000

www.rockthebells.net

SUNDAY 9/15

 

Darwin Deez

Darwin Deez is known for nutty antics like bringing a head of cabbage out onto the stage (as a “symbol of frugalness”) and chucking it at the crowd to eat. And his wriggly, emo-pop second album Songs for Imaginative People proved that he hasn’t forgotten about his equally nutty fanbase. His half-joking-totally-serious approach to songwriting garners a very unique brand of follower, the kind of person who likes things weird. The tracks on Songs aren’t as easy to swallow as those on his debut, self-titled album Darwin Deez. Tracks swing by in a cacophony of synthy beats and buzzing electric riffs and Deez’s frequently deadpan voice undeniably weaves through them in a disjointed way — adding a disheveled tone to the album. But from the silly and unpredictable misfit whose greatest obsession may be breakfast food, who’d expect anything else? (Smith)

With Caged Animals, the Soonest

$15, 9pm

Bottom of the Hill

1233 17th St., SF

(415) 626-4455

www.bottomofthehill.com

MONDAY 9/16

 

John Williams

Composer John Williams has written the scores for some of the most beloved films of all time — pieces of music that has become so interwoven with the onscreen narratives that it’s almost impossible to imagine the movies without them — Star Wars, JAWS, Indiana Jones, Superman, E.T., Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Jurassic Park, and many, many more. Tonight is a rare chance to see the maestro live and in person, conducting the San Francisco Symphony and leading them through some of his greatest works. Friend and frequent collaborator director Steven Spielberg will also appear for part of the program as a special guest host. (McCourt)

8pm, $15–$152

Davies Symphony Hall

201 Van Ness Ave., SF

(415) 864-6000

www.sfsymphony.org

TUESDAY 9/17

 

The So So Glos

Did you want to spend a night pogo-ing around like the animal you are? The So So Glos, gritty DIY punks from Brooklyn, have just what the doctor ordered. Literally a band of brothers (the majority of the group is blood-related), the So So Glos lay testament to what hard work and determination can accomplish. Helping establish East Coast all-ages DIY venues such as Market Hotel and “Shea Stadium” (where the band also lives), the group is dedicated to keeping the proverbial DIY scene alive. Often compared to fellow Brooklynites Japanther, the So So Glos are hot off their newest release Blowout. The album has been described “in your face” and hi-fi! Also on the bill is unfortunately-named Diarrhea Planet, and Unstrung. Straight off Burger Records, the Tennessee-based Diarrhea Planet is Southern-fried Ramones worship while SF-based trio Unstrung goes for a more aggressive, punk route. (Dage)

9pm, $10

Brick and Mortar Music Hall

1710 Mission, SF

(415) 371-1631

www.brickandmortarmusic.com

Bugging out

Sasha Cuttler
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0
Bugging out

MUSIC As Urinals folklore goes, the band was formed in 1978 by a group of five UCLA students looking to have a spot in their dorm talent show. Guitarist and vocalist John Talley-Jones recalls the band’s earnest beginnings as an experiment that evolved into something much more. “We were in film school, not approaching it as musicians, but as conceptual artists,” Talley-Jones says. “It was an experiment to see if you put five people with limited music in a room and see what they can do with one quasi guitarist. It was like an art project.”

And 35 years later — save for a decade-long hiatus and a few changes in the lineup — the Urinals are still at it. The group play’s Oakland record shop Stranded’s one-year anniversary party this weekend, and has a new full-length in the works for next year (label yet to be determined).

Coming forth in a time when virtuoso-like musicians were most valued, inexperience and ineptitude were the Urinals’ calling card — from music on down to the etching of a garbled face on its Sex E.P. (Happy Squid Records, 1980) and anthology Negative Capability…Check it Out! (Amphetamine Reptile Records, 1997).

“Carey Southall, a person I worked with at UCLA, drew the illustration using his non-dominant hand,” Talley-Jones says. “It was a metaphor for the Urinals — he was handicapped by not using his dominant hand [and] we were handicapped by our musical capabilities.”

And yet, it’s no question that the Urinals have been deemed influential by today’s music scene, with covers of “Black Hole” by lo-fi punk outfit Grass Widow, “Male Masturbation” covered by noisy punk group No Age, and “I’m a Bug” by hardcore punk group Ceremony. But if one takes notice of all these songs, they are all from early Urinals releases. And Talley-Jones is sure to take notice of this.

“When I think of the Urinals, I see a band that got together in ’78, and developed in the last 35 years,” Talley-Jones says. “Not many people have heard or recognized material past our first few releases.”

And just as people grow and develop, so did the Urinals. In their infancy, the Urinals were known for their raucous, simplistic sound. As the band members matured and learned how to play their instruments, the band reached its adolescent stage, becoming an admittedly post-punk outfit dubbed 100 Flowers for a brief stint during the ’80s and playing shows during the 2000s.

“I remember starting out with the Urinals, feeling that I had to carry on a certain stage persona, mine being theatrically psychotic” Talley-Jones says. “But as time wore on, I grew into my own. When I first started I would be anxious the entire day before the show. After the first few years, that disappeared.”

Though many elements have shifted with the band throughout the years, one thing remains pertinent: DIY ethics. In the age of virtuoso-like butt-rock, Talley-Jones and fellow band mates accepted the fact that two-chord songs seldom lasting more than a minute about just being a bug (“I’m a Bug”) or a hologram (“Hologram”), weren’t exactly a hot commodity. Known for putting out many of their releases on self-owned record label, Happy Squid Records, self-production was a necessity.

Talley-Jones recalls being approached by Vitus Matare, keyboardist for Los Angeles power punk outfit the Last, about recording the Urinals.

“Everything was starting from the ground up,” Talley-Jones says. “Of course Vitus Matare recorded us initially, but following that we taught ourselves how to write, play, and distribute. We had no misapprehension to ever be signed, because what we were doing was not marketable to the masses.”

That being said, the Urinals appreciate doing things on the cheap — that’s why the band is playing this free show with the original lineup (comprised of Talley-Jones, Kjehl Johansen, and Kevin Barrett), in honor of an East Bay record store.

URINALS

With Meg Baird, Ava Mendoza, Dominique Leon Sat/14, 3pm, free Stranded 6436 Telegraph, Oakl. (510) 858-5977 www.strandedinoakland.com

 

Girls like us

Sasha Cuttler
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0
Girls like us

TOFU AND WHISKEY Before Le Tigre but after the demise of Bikini Kill, Kathleen Hanna created a mystical lo-fi electropop solo project called Julie Ruin. It was a difficult time for the riot grrrl icon; having recently flown the Pacific Northwest coop for Brooklyn, she let the ache out in song.

More than 15 years after that record and a whirlwind of life changes later (Le Tigre hiatus, Beastie Boy husband), Hanna and a newly assembled band of cohorts — Kathi Wilcox, Kenny Mellman, Carmine Covelli, Sara Landeau — reformed that project as the Julie Ruin. The Julie Ruin released its first group full-length, Run Fast, last week on Dischord.

A dancey new wave record bursting with head-bopping beats, lightning bolt electric guitars, and empowering lyrics, it’s set to be another chant-along feminist anthem album. But it’s a small miracle Run Fast was even made. Before she returned to music, Hanna was laid up with a then-mysterious illness for half a decade and this was her first effort back.

In the midst of a massive media blitz, including a live appearance on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon last week, Hanna and I discussed the Julie Ruin’s new record, struggles with neurological Lyme disease, why Photoshop is better than beer, and her young spirit sister, Tavi Gevinson, feminist teen editor of Rookie Magazine:

SF Bay Guardian Why did you decide to return to an earlier project, but with an entirely new band?

Kathleen Hanna I guess because I was starting from a similar place. I was coming up with loops and melodies and instead of just working on them myself, I brought them to the band and expanded on them. When I listen back to the Julie Ruin solo record, I hear kind of demos more than a fully finished record — which I think is great, and I’m proud of that record — but I was like “what if I start with the same idea but it was totally fleshed out?” So musically that was a big part of the project from me.

Also a big part of the project for me was starting from the same emotional place, of, you know, I was leaving Bikini Kill when I did the Julie Ruin solo project and that was a really big change in my life. And then I’m having this other really big change in my life, which is that I haven’t really made music for [nearly] 10 years. And instead of isolating and making this very private thing in my apartment by myself and feeling like I had to go it all alone, I reached out to my friends and said, “Hey, will you help me?” And luckily they said yes.

SFBG What was it like picking up instruments and working on music again after such a long hiatus?

KH It was great [and] it was weird! It was immediate chemistry with my bandmates. It felt like I was getting back to my old self.

I’d been sick for many years and my illness and kind of taken me out of things. I started doing a lot of archival stuff behind the scenes, but I hadn’t played music. It’s funny that I chose to do it when I was really, really sick but part of the reason was I needed some kind of hope to go on. And I didn’t know if we would record or tour or any of that. I just told them, “I want to play music, do you guys want to meet once a week and see how that goes?”

But a lot of times we couldn’t even meet, because I’d be sick. So it was a very slow process. But when I felt well enough to get to rehearsal I would forget I was sick, I would forget any pain I was in, I would forget I was fatigued. It would all come back to me. It was really important in my recovery process because you become all about the illness, especially an illness like Lyme disease, where there’s so much work you have to do to stay well or to get well, constant pills and IVs and specialist appointments.

I saw footage of Bikini Kill in the movie The Punk Singer that was being made about me, and I felt like I was light years away from that. I could barely walk up the stairs. And then I would write a song with my new band and feel like, “I still am that person.”

SFBG Did battling this disease directly inform any of the tracks on Run Fast?

KH I have a form of Lyme disease that affects my brain, neurological Lyme disease, so during a lot of the record I was having a hard time with language, so I would often say the wrong word. So when I was writing lyrics, I sort of just let that go, I didn’t try to go back, it was so much more stream-of-consciousness than I’ve [ever done]. I was like, why does it have to be a total narrative for every song? Why can’t it be abstract?

There are parts of the record where I just go “blah blah blah!” I would go back and fix that when I was feeling better but people would say to put it back in. It sounds alive, it sounds like you. I let that go.

SFBG How collaborative was the songwriting process for the album?

KH In the very beginning when we were writing I would bring in little loops I had made with me singing over it. And I’d be like, “oh, I really like this melody for a verse.” And then they would be like, let’s have that be the starting point. They really wrote all the music and I wrote the lyrics except for [keyboardist] Kenny [Mellman]’s song, “South Coast Plaza.”

SFBG Where did the album art [of a hot pink stuffed creature] come from, and what is it referencing?

KH That cover was made by artist Allyson Mitchell. I went to an art show and saw some of her pieces…[The creature on the cover] is a “familiar” — you know how a witch has a “familiar?” It’s from a large project called Ladies Sasquatch, of these huge, 10-foot-tall lesbian sasquatches and then each of them has a familiar, like a tiny doll, that goes with it, and that’s what’s on the cover.

SFBG It brought up to me the importance of album covers. People don’t seem to care about cover art as much anymore, but it is something that has always come up in your back catalogue. [Ed. note — I resisted the urge here to tell her I have one of her album covers tattooed on my upper arm]

KH If I haven’t made the actual album cover myself…I’ve been very instrumental. I made all the Bikini Kill covers beside the very last one. I did all the drawings and graphics for the zines. I’ve always been really involved. They’re really important to me because I started as a visual artist, and I’m addicted to Photoshop. Like, instead of going to a bar and drinking beer, I sit at home with Photoshop. If I would’ve had Photoshop in the ’90s, I would have been a total crazy person.

But I think it’s really important to set the tone of the record. There’s something really fun and upbeat about [Run Fast] but then there’s something really sinister lurking behind it, maybe it’s my illness, the fact that Kenny writes a really happy-sounding song about euthanasia, “Party City” is about me confronting death, so it really made sense that we picked this kind of adorable yet creepy character for the cover of the record.

SFBG How did you meet teenage editor Tavi Gevinson, and later end up playing a party for her online magazine, Rookie?

KH I sent her this sweater that someone made for me that said “Feminist” on it. It shrank and I was like, “I don’t know anybody tiny enough to fit in this!” I heard about her before Rookie — I sent it to her and she wore it in stuff [for her previous blog, Style Rookie]. So it was this mutual admiration society. People were giving her shit at the time so I reached out to her. You know, she’s a kid. And she’s doing this amazing work. I just think it’s so important that young people take over culture and create their own. She’s really smart and she really wants to be inclusive.

Playing [Rookie’s] party was like a dream come true. It was kind of our first show and it was only for like, 100 kids at this weird outdoor area in a mall. It was one of the weirdest first shows a band can have.

THE JULIE RUIN

With La Sera

Tue/17, 8pm, $18

Slim’s

333 11th St, SF

www.slimspresents.com

 

Holy terror

Sasha Cuttler
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0
Holy terror

LIT A tale of horrors so unbelievable it could only be plucked from real life, Tom Kizzia’s Pilgrim’s Wilderness: A True Story of Faith and Madness on the Alaska Frontier (Crown Publishers, 336 pp., $25) details the saga of self-styled religious fanatic “Papa Pilgrim,” aka Robert Hale, who in 2002 moved his wife and 15 children to McCarthy, a remote Alaska community.

The Pilgrims lived off the land; they followed their patriarch’s interpretation of the Bible with cultlike fervor. Though they gained local fame for their bluegrass band, their greatest notoriety came courtesy of a battle with the National Park Service, thanks to an illegally-bulldozed road and the complications that ensued.

But any folk-hero status was obliterated when the true story of the Pilgrim family — from Robert Hale’s dark past, including the mysterious death of his first wife, to the shocking abuse endured by all of his children, particularly oldest daughter Elishaba — came to light. Homer, AK-based journalist Kizzia had an insider’s advantage when it came to reporting the story, since he owns a cabin near McCarthy and was familiar with the characters that populated the surrounding wilderness. He wrote about the Pilgrim story as it unfolded, and later turned his research and findings into Pilgrim’s Wilderness.

SF Bay Guardian I was just reading your original Anchorage Daily News articles on this story, and the first headline, from June 2003, is “The Pilgrims, a family of inholders in McCarthy, clear 13 miles of national park land.” At what point did you realize this story was more than simply an eccentric rural family’s squabbles with the National Park Service?

Tom Kizzia That first story, I did over the phone, and [Papa Pilgrim’s] patter was so eccentric that I realized it would make a great story to see what this family is like up close. It was really when I got out there that I realized there was a really strange edge to the place.

That was also when I realized that more [information] had to come out before I could say I really understood what the story was. Right at that time, I stumbled onto [Papa Pilgrim’s] past, that he wasn’t this quaint, hillbilly hermit that he was making himself out to be. That raised all sorts of interesting questions as well. But it was years before the family really blew up and anything was known about what had been going on inside.

SFBG It seems like you were the ideal person to write this story — not only were you writing some of the earliest articles about the family, you also own a cabin near McCarthy.

TK [Papa Pilgrim] was such a great manipulator that he played that up, even to me. “I won’t talk to other reporters, but I’ll talk to you.” He always knew how to make you feel puffed up. He was playing me, I could tell. I’ve been a reporter a long time! But I was playing him back, too. If he wanted to play that game, and it was going to get me access, then I played along.

It was kind of fun to talk about that in the book, just as one of many small sub-themes — that back-and-forth that goes on between subject and journalist. And I asked myself later, did I go too easy on him when I was up at his wilderness lair? Should I have asked tougher questions?

But I think you could reasonably say that was a somewhat perilous situation to be in. You don’t necessarily want to be too in-your-face when you’re out in the wilderness with the guy. Plus, I knew that he had a phone, so I could call him later if I found out more — which I did. And indeed, those phone conversations got testier and testier.

SFBG I had never heard the term “inholder” — people who own property within National Park Service land — before I read your book. Why do communities like McCarthy sometimes have antagonistic feelings toward the Park Service?

TK It’s a big thing in the West. I’d heard about these kinds of frictions just growing up and reading about Western history — and in Alaska, it was being played out in the modern day.

It was partly a holdover from the 1970s, when the debate was going on over what the creation of these new parks in Alaska was going to mean to the local lifestyle. For a lot of people, it was the coming of government to a rural area that had very little government before. It was, “We used to be able to do what we want, and now there’s someone telling us we have to do things a certain way.” That put people off.

But the parks in Alaska were created, in a way, to try to allow that rural lifestyle to continue. A lot of that impetus came out of a desire to protect the Alaska native cultures, and their hunting and fishing traditions. Congress chose to provide those rights for all rural Alaskans, native and non-native. And as a consequence, you end up with families like the Pilgrims moving out into the bush and taking advantage of those opportunities.

SFBG I kept wondering why, if Papa Pilgrim really wanted to keep his family isolated, he picked so many fights with the Park Service.

TK As we came to understand only much later, he thrived on having external enemies. So the park, and its bureaucracy, made a convenient enemy for him; he could rally his family and, for awhile, others in the community, to defend him.

But I puzzled at that: If you really want to be isolated, why build a road to your doorstep? There’s a contradiction there. But that’s sort of the great American contradiction, too — the great story of Western expansion. Building up your valley, and then trying to keep it to yourself.

SFBG Pilgrim’s daughter Elishaba, who suffered the most abuse, emerges as sort of the hero of the story. At what point did she open up to you?

TK It was really in the latter parts of my research where she became comfortable telling me her story. I think it had partly to do with her coming forward in church fellowship settings and talking about her experiences, and realizing what it meant to others to hear what she had been through and how she had come out of it.

And she also realized that even within a non-Christian setting, it’s helpful for victims of domestic violence to realize that you can get out, even from the most desperate situation that you could imagine — which would be her situation, not only physically, but also mentally and psychologically. She was trapped by her sense of her soul being in peril if she rebelled. But she found the strength to do it. *

TOM KIZZIA

Sept. 18, 7pm, free

Books Inc.

301 Castro, Mtn. View

Sept. 19, 7pm, free

Book Passage

51 Tamal Vista, Corte Madera

www.tomkizzia.com

 

Provoc-auteur

Sasha Cuttler
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1
Provoc-auteur

FILM It still boggles the mind that perhaps the most important single figure in the socio-religiously conservative Italy’s artistic media of the 1960s through the mid-’70s — an extraordinarily fertile period, particularly for cinema — was an openly queer Marxist atheist and relentless church critic. Pier Paolo Pasolini stirred innumerable controversies during his life, ending prematurely in his alleged 1975 murder by a teenage hustler. (Conspiracy theories still swirl around its actually being a political or organized-crime assassination.)

He was an acclaimed poet, novelist, screenwriter, director, playwright, painter, political commentator, and public intellectual. In several of those roles he was pilloried — and prosecuted — for obscenity. What seemed pornographic to some at the time now, for the most part, looks simply like heightened, gritty social realism, and frank acknowledgement that sexuality (and morality) comes in all shades. Yet one must admit: Arguably no filmmaker outside the realm of actual porn put so much dick (often uncut, and occasionally erect) right there onscreen.

Pasolini’s film work has a lingering rep as being somewhat rough sledding, in both themes and technique. Certainly he was no extravagant cinematic stylist on the level of Antonioni, Visconti, Fellini, and Bertolucci (though he contributed as a writer to films by the latter two), the other leading Italian auteurs of the time. But it’s surprising how pleasurable on many levels his features look today, as showcased in a traveling retrospective getting its Bay Area exposure at the Castro Theatre, Roxie Theater, and Berkeley’s Pacific Film Archive through Oct. 31.

The two San Francisco dates highlight the three periods of Pasolini’s cinema; the PFA’s more extensive survey (ending with 1975’s Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom for Halloween, the kind of programmatic coup de grace that leaves you suspended between “genius!” and “WTF?”) running weeks longer. While there are overlaps, the latter provides berth for his neorealist classic feature debut Accatone (1961), shorts, and several documentaries including 1964’s seldom-revived Love Meetings, in which PPP himself interviews Italians about their sexual attitudes — from asking not-so-young kids how babies are born (“the stork brings them”) to grilling adults about gender double-standards regarding marital virginity. Then there’s 1969’s bizarre Pigsty, which put leading 1960s Euro-art-cine weirdos Pierre Clémenti and Jean-Pierre Léaud in separate threads of a two-pronged experimental narrative. It was weird enough to forgo US release until 1974.

There are also such baffling, shit-stirring features as Hawks and Sparrows (1966), an existential comedy suspended between Beckett and A Hard Day’s Night (1964); plus 1968 shocker Teorema, in which Terence Stamp’s mysterious bisexual visitor liberates and destroys a repressed bourgeoisie Italian family.

This weekend’s Castro-Roxie showcases the extent to which Pasolini was a cinematic populist — however inadvertently for such a radical thinker. His “trilogy of life” brought to the screen bawdy medieval stories by Boccaccio (1971’s The Decameron), Chaucer (1972’s Canterbury Tales) and unknown legend scribers (1974’s Arabian Nights.) All were originally rated X. The first is a bawdy delight; the last is a gorgeously melancholic, serpentine lineup of seriocomic stories-within-stories. Canterbury is a mixed bag, as Pasolini had problems structuring it editorially and was despondent over longtime protégé and lover Ninetto Davoli — who was 15 when they first met — leaving him for a woman. Nonetheless, he gave Davoli a big part in the wonderful Nights, albeit one in which his hapless character is finally castrated by angry women. (Touché.)

With their unprecedented amounts of full nudity, offering up sexuality (and normal, imperfect bodies) as something simply natural rather than prurient, each portion of this “phallocentric” trio was instantly notorious. The films became his greatest commercial successes — though curiously he later abjured them, partly out of guilt that so many actors’ “innocent bodies [had] been violated, manipulated, and enslaved by consumerist power.” Who but Pasolini would be depressed by having hits?

That shift from comparative joie de vivre back to bleak commentary on social injustice resulted in unintended swansong Salò, a grueling depiction of classist sadism that usefully transfers the Marquis de Sade’s infamous Bastille-written 1785 120 Days of Sodom to the bitter end of Italy’s World War II-losing fascist era. While in the literary original aristocratic children were kidnapped to be abused by decadent church and secular power mongers, here it’s pointedly spawn of the anti-fascist peasant underclass (all actors assuredly 18-or-plus to avoid prosecution).

The characters forced into ever-escalating sexual and violent degradations to survive, no mercy is spared. Salò remains banned in several countries, notably Asian and Middle Eastern ones. Its largely naked, helpless “young victim” cast (who apparently thoroughly enjoyed the filming, having no idea just how fucked up the material was) proved Pasolini’s last instance of drafting nonprofessionals who struck his eye. As a showcase for such raw talent, it was second only to a film he’d made a decade earlier: 1964’s The Gospel According to St. Matthew, a gritty, black-and-white riposte to the garish CinemaScope Biblical epics of the era. Ironically, that film by a Commie atheist fag remains one of the cinematic depictions of Christ most highly regarded by believers.

Nearly all these movies featured his favorite discoveries Davoli and Franco Citti, the former an endearing comic goofball, the latter a smoldering hunk usually cast as amoral evildoer. Both enjoyed long careers after their mentor died. Their very different types of screen charisma remain high among the delights that Pasolini’s cinema offers today. Davoli will be on hand at the Castro and Roxie screenings. Given his guileless, antic persona in the films, it’s a fair bet he’ll be a riot in person. *

PIER PAOLO PASOLINI

Sat/14, $12

Castro Theatre, 429 Castro, SF

Sun/15, $12

Roxie Theater, 3117 16th St, SF

Sept. 20-Oct. 31, $5.50-$9.50

Pacific Film Archive, 2575 Bancroft, Berk.

www.pasolinifilm.com

 

Alerts

Sasha Cuttler
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0

ALERTS

 

Wednesday 11

Vandana Shiva on biotechnology Goldman Theater, David Brower Center, 2150 Allston, Berk. www.kpfa.org. 7:30pm, free. Join world-renowned environmental philosopher and author Vandana Shiva for a forum on the biotechnology industry. Shiva will illuminate the corporate assault on biological and cultural diversity, in conversation with Gopal Dayaneni of Movement Generation: Justice and Ecology Project. She’ll help concerned activists to connect the dots: What is the East Bay “Green Corridor,” who’s behind it, and what are the implications for communities here and around the globe?

 

Friday 13

Oil and unions in Iraq SEIU 1021 office, 350 Rhode Island, SF. 1021.seiu.org. 6:30pm, free. Listen as Hassan Juma’a Awad, president of the Iraq Federation of Oil Unions, shares his experience in struggling for basic labor rights for Iraqi workers. Iraq’s public sector workers (including the oil sector) lack the legal right to organize or engage in collective bargaining, more than a decade after the end of the dictatorship. Earlier this year, Hassan faced criminal charges in retaliation for worker strikes, and was accused of undermining Iraq’s economy.

 

Saturday 14

North by Northwest bike ride Velo Rouge Cafe, 798 Arguello, SF. 1:30pm, free. Interested in street design, bikeways, traffic calming, and other kinds of improvements along San Francisco city streets? Join a group of cyclists on this afternoon ride to learn about the history and current projects that shape the streets on which we walk and bike. This ride will feature a series of stops and information about how the 2009 Bike Plan and other ongoing projects are shaping the northwestern parts of San Francisco.

 

Monday 16

Mexican Independence Day 2940 16th St., SF. Livingwage-sf.org. 7pm, $10–$15. Join the San Francisco Living Wage Coalition for a concert and celebration of Mexican Independence Day. “Songs of Healing for Juarez” will provide an emergency benefit concert for Las Hormigas, an organization that has been working to address violence and poverty in Ciudad Juarez. The concert will feature Diana Gameros, Francisco Herrera and other guests, as well as a live art auction. For more information, call (415) 863-1225.

Jill Stein on movements vs. money Unite Here Local 2, 209 Golden Gate, SF. 6-9pm, free. Jill Stein, the Green Party Presidential Candidate of 2012, will discuss the creation and intent of The Green Shadow Cabinet, an organization that includes nearly 100 prominent community and labor leaders, physicians, cultural workers, veterans and others with the goal of providing an ongoing opposition and alternative voice to dysfunctional Washington, DC politics. Stein will speak on current political dynamics and strategies for creating good jobs, ending student debt, cultivating democracy and breathing new life into the environmental movement. Hosted by OccupyForum.

 

Expand protections for small businesses

Sasha Cuttler
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40

EDITORIAL Corporations and chain stores are crafty, and they can always find creative ways to get around whatever barriers that cities and counties erect to protect their local small businesses. And such barriers are important because most large corporations enjoy economies of scale, the ability to absorb sustained losses while gaining market share, and other unfair competitive advantages.

San Francisco voters and legislators have approved and expanded so-called formula retail legislative protections over the last decade, requiring stores with 11 or more locations that want to open in neighborhood commercial districts to obtain a conditional use permit, allowing the public to weigh in and city officials to reject disfavored projects.

But as we observed in last month’s saga involving chain store men’s clothier Jack Spade’s planned move into the old Adobe Bookstore space on 16th Street near Valencia, it’s still too easy for deep-pocketed corporations to make stealthy inroads into some of San Francisco’s most beloved and sensitive commercial districts.

First, Jack Spade disguised its corporate connections in pulling a building permit, then it won over the zoning administrator by claiming only 10 stores (despite the fact that it’s a national chain owned by Fifth & Pacific, aka Liz Claiborne, which also has a string of Kate Spade women’s clothing stores), and then, even when activists and small businesses won the argument and a 3-2 vote by the Board of Appeals on Aug. 21, that wasn’t the supermajority needed to overturn the flawed decision.

As they say in the neighborhood: That shit ain’t right.

Clearly, something needs to change because Jack Spade isn’t the first, and it won’t be the last, corporate-owned chain store that wants to move into the Mission and other gentrifying commercial districts in the city, including Western SoMa (where development forces have been unleashed by the city’s approval of its local area plan earlier this year), Hayes Valley, Polk Gulch, and the Divisidero corridor.

And when one deep-pocketed chain store moves in — a corporation that is willing to invest early in an up-and-coming neighborhood — it creates a strong upward pressure on commercial rents that forces out small businesses, nonprofits, and community-based organizations. And then residential rents follow suit.

Only governmental and political will can break this pattern, and it’s a pattern that must be broken if San Francisco is going to retain its economic vitality. Study after study shows that small businesses circulate their revenues within the community instead of siphoning them off to Wall Street and the corporate headquarters, and that helps the overall local economy.

Flawed ideas about consumer choice and the supposed wisdom of the supposedly free market shouldn’t distract San Francisco and other cities from focusing their economic development efforts on local small businesses, a sympathetic symbol that gets disingenuously trotted out in the rhetoric of Mayor Ed Lee and his allies even as he stacks the Small Business Commission with bankers and right-wing ideologues.

Now, with the Board of Supervisors back from its summer recess, is the time to redouble our efforts to resist corporate dominance. That should include support for Sup. Eric Mar’s legislation to change the metrics for what’s considered “formula retail,” support for Sup. London Breed’s efforts to expand protections in Hayes Valley and Sup. Jane Kim’s similar efforts along Market Street, and consideration of changing the vote threshold for the Board of Appeals and giving neighborhoods more tools to resist stores like Jack Spade.

Nothing less than the soul and face of San Francisco is at stake, and it’s up to all of us to fight for it and not be fooled by self-serving and simplistic “jobs” rhetoric. We need to call a Spade a Spade, and a corporation a corporation, and defend what makes San Francisco special: real, local people serving real, local people, not the interests of Wall Street.

 

 

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